


Weird

by AutisticWriter



Series: Writer's Month 2019 [20]
Category: Persona 4, Persona Series
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - No Personas (Persona Series), Angst, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Kubo Mitsuo, Blood, Dark, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Knives, Kubo Mitsuo has NPD, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Narcissistic Personality Disorder - NPD, One Shot, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Relationship, Prompt Fic, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Slurs, Writer's Month 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-10-02 00:49:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20454287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutisticWriter/pseuds/AutisticWriter
Summary: Mitsuo can’t remember the last time someone actually liked him, and didn’t call him weird. But Yu Narukami seems determined to change that.Prompt 20: Weird





	Weird

Weird.

  
Everyone calls him that. Always have. Always will.

  
And he fucking hates it.

  
He knows he is weird—different—strange—any of the words adults use when talking about him, and Mitsuo knows they’re all euphemisms for what they really think about him.

  
They think he’s retarded. They think he is insane. They think he is dangerous.  
Maybe he is. Who even cares anymore?

  
When he was five, he was diagnosed with autism. His fucking evil parents threw him straight into ABA, a sick type of therapy designed to make him normal. For years, he spend hours of his week in a small room with a patronising therapist, doing ridiculous tasks for no reason. He forced eye contact even though it fucking hurts, he endured wasabi in his mouth when he stimmed, and he got used to having meltdowns and being shut in a dark closet or pinned to the floor as punishment. And after all that shit, he’s still autistic.

  
He’s just autistic and fucking traumatised.

  
As he grew up, people ignored him. Laughed at him. Called him ugly and fucked up and weird. Fucking weird.

  
It’s always fucking weird.

  
So he spent his time alone. He plays video games obsessively, but other gamers don’t talk to him. So he just plays alone.

  
His parents didn’t want him, and they still don’t. They never say it, but they hate him. He knows they hate him.

  
As he grew up in a cycle of abuse and neglect and hatred, Mitsuo realised something was going on in his brain. As he grew, his personality shifted, and he became even more withdrawn. But he also started to feel painfully ignored, craving attention and desperate for people to know who he was, but they still ignored him. He started misbehaving at school just so people would see him. Within a few years, Mitsuo was left bitter and hating everyone, hating how life had fucked him over and—didn’t he deserve good things after all this shit? Why wouldn’t people treat him well? He was smart and got good grades and—why didn’t anyone praise him?

  
And now, at eighteen years of age, Mitsuo sits in front of his laptop, reading an article about Narcassistic Personality Disorder. And it makes so much fucking sense it’s actually kind of terrifying. Abuse in childhood—check. Feelings of entitlement—check. Needing attention—check. Lack of empathy—definitely check (when was the last time he felt another person’s emotions?). Fixation on own intelligence—check. Envy of others—check. Yeah, this makes a lot of sense.

  
But what does he do about it? He must have NPD, but how does he bring it up to his doctor, or his parents? Everyone already thinks he’s weird, and the stigma of being diagnosed with something everyone associates with bad people would surely fuck him over even more.

  
Mitsuo sighs and goes back to bragging about all the trophies he has won on his PS4 on an internet forum. He types his words too formally and perfectly, and the other person calls him a retard. Mistso grits his jaw and slams the laptop shut so fast the screen cracks.

  
What should he do? He hates himself—he hates everyone else—and even though he’s intelligent, everyone hates him too.  
—  
There is one person who doesn’t hate him: Yu Narukami. They met back when Mitsuo still had a crush on Yukiko and was sort of stalking her, only for Yukiko’s friend to kick him in the balls as they ran away. But Yu stayed behind and offered him a hand.

  
Mitsuo scowled up at him. “Fuck off.”

  
Nothing seemed to phase Yu, who simply raised an eyebrow and said, “Okay.”

  
During his rare trips out of the house, Mitsuo started to notice Yu hanging around in town. He seemed to have tons of jobs and even more friends, rushing around and always busy. Mitsuo stared at him, jealousy bubbling up inside of him—because why did Yu get all the success when he didn’t?

  
One day, Mitsuo was sat at a table in the far corner of the Junes Food Court, headphones in as he played on his 3DS, ignoring everyone and pausing every few minutes to sip his cola. He didn’t like being out, but his parents kicked him out of the house to force him to go outdoors, so he came here. And, to his confusion, he looked up to find Yu stood nearby, looking at him.

  
“What d’you want?” he muttered.

  
As calm as always, Yu simply smiled. “I, uh, just wanted to check in on you. Have you been… leaving Yukiko alone?”

  
“Yes,” Mitsuo spat. Now she had rejected him, he hated her and couldn’t understand what he ever saw in her. “Piss off.”

  
But Yu didn’t leave. “Kubo-san, are you okay?”

  
Mitsuo didn’t even look up, snorting. To be asked such a fucking stupid question out of the blue like that… he just laughed. “You fucking idiot,” he said, still not looking at Yu. “Of course I’m not okay. This is how I always am, but you wouldn’t know that, because you’re not my friend or anything stupid like that. Go away.”

  
He expected Yu to snap, to call him weird or swear or call him an asshole, but Yu simply nodded and left. How was that bastard always so collected? Mitsuo bounced his legs under the table and tried to ignore the jealousy sitting deep in his guts.

  
Over the next few months, he kept bumping into Yu more and more. Yu always smiled, but Mitsuo always scowled at him. But that didn’t put Yu off, and he kept jogging over to talk to him if he spotted him in public. Thank God they didn’t go to the same school, or Mitsuo would never be able to escape him.

  
Whenever Yu came and tried to make conversation (eventually getting awkward mumbles in response to his questions from the very uncomfortable Mitsuo), part of Mitsuo was convinced Yu was just there to mock him. That was why everyone else talked to him—to call him weird.

  
After what must have been their tenth conversation, Mitsuo snapped. As they stood outside the bookstore, he threw his water bottle to the ground so hard it exploded. “Why do you keep talking to me?!” he cried as water sprayed all over his shoes.

  
Yu flinched, taking a step backwards. He swallowed, staring at Mitsuo warily. If he didn’t think Mitsuo was weird before, he would now.

  
“Just fuck off, Narukami!” he yelled, stamping his foot. “Go spend time with one of your millions of friends! Just leave me alone!”

  
And he stormed off, well aware everyone was staring at him but not giving a shit.  
At home, he rummaged for the flick knife he kept under his bed and stared at the blade, trembling. Why did Yu keep hanging around him? Was he just mocking him? Did he mistakenly think Mitsuo was a normal person? Was he hanging around the Crazy Guy on a dare? Mitsuo groaned through tightly gritted teeth and stabbed the knife into his thigh, right through his pants. He cried out in pain, the blade an inch deep into his flesh and blood already soaking through his pant leg, but he didn’t care. Why did he still think he deserved friends and success and happiness when he clearly didn’t? He hated his brain. He hated people. And—he pulled out the knife, staring at the bloody gash with watering eyes—he hated Yu Narukami.

  
The next day, Mitsuo walked with a limp as he headed home from school, the wound still bleeding despite the many dressings he taped to it over the course of the day. He probably needed stitches, but it was too late now. He hadn’t self-harmed in years, and he had forgotten how fucking good it felt to slice open his skin and cry in agony. Again, it’s fucked up, but is there a part of him that isn’t?

  
“Kubo-san!”

  
Despite Mitsuo’s outburst the day before, Yu was actually walking towards him. What the fuck?

  
Mitsuo wanted to run away, but his leg hurt too much. So he just stood there, letting Yu approach. “What?”

  
Yu faltered slightly. “I, um, I’m sorry about yesterday.”

  
He just stared. “What the fuck? Why’re you apologising?”

  
“I must have upset you. And, I’m sorry for trying to talk to you so much. I just wanted to get to know you better.”

  
“But why?” Mitsuo said.

  
“I don’t know how to explain it. I just… could you let me in, please?”

  
“Huh?”

  
Obviously realising Mitsuo didn’t understand, Yu attempted to rephrase his words. “You keep your guard up—you’re so defensive and private—and if you’d maybe take the guard down to talk to me… we could get to know each other. I, I’m not trying to mock you or anything… so… yeah…”

  
To see Narukami stumbling over his words was an interesting sight, but Mitsuo was more focused on what he said. He frowned. “I don’t get it. What do you want from me?”

  
Yu stared down at the ground, his face going an unnatural shade of red. “I… would you like to come to my house for dinner?”

  
“What are you—five?” Mitsuo spluttered, and Yu flinched. But going to Narukami’s house would mean not having to go home to parents who didn’t love him for a few more hours, and Narukami seemed genuine and hadn’t called him names yet, so… He sighed. “Fine.”

  
Yu smiled. “Great!” He rattled out his address and hurried off, mumbling something about texting his cousin as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

  
Mitsuo sighed, folding his arms. He had just done exactly what Narukami wanted—he let his guard down. Was it okay to trust someone who hadn’t mocked him yet? Or would this all go horribly wrong?

  
Still, Mitsuo ran the address over in his mind and limped off in that direction.  
—  
Thankfully, the meal with Narukami went okay. His cousin was rather sweet, if obviously scared of Mitsuo, and Yu even managed to get more than a few sentences out of him. the entire affair felt awkward, yet familiar, and looking back on it, Mitsuo realises how he felt as he sat at that table opposite Narukami: happy.

  
He actually felt happy, an emotion he hadn’t heard of in over a decade.

  
He still doesn’t understand why spending time with Yu made him feel this way, but… he wants to feel it again.

  
So when Yu walks up to him and asks him to his house again, Mitsuo doesn’t scowl. He wants to see where this goes.

  
And, maybe… he doesn’t actually hate Yu.

  
And Yu doesn’t think he is weird.


End file.
